1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to nanoparticles in the shape of nanosnowman with a head part and a body part, a preparation method thereof, and a detection method using the same. More particularly, the present invention relates to nanoparticles in the shape of nanosnowman with head and body parts, which can offer platforms for DNA-based assembly of various aligned and unconventional nanostructures and is highly applicable to the detection of DNA and an analyte associated with the onset and progression of a particular disease, a preparation method thereof, and a detection method using the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
Because of their plasmonic, catalytic, electronic, and magnetic properties, metal nanostructures have been intensively studied over the past decade. Combining multiple metallic nanocomponents into a single specific nanostructure often generates unusual optical and chemical properties such as intense plasmonic coupling and higher chemical affinity, and offers wider and more diverse applications. However, synthesizing and assembling these complex nanostructures are challenging, and the use of multicomponent, multimeric metallic nanostructures is severely limited because of their synthetic inaccessibility.
Although there has been much progress in synthesizing various nanostructures, including multimetallic nanoparticles such as core-shell, tadpole-like, heterodimers at a liquid micelle interface, nanopolyhedra and nanorods (Shi, W. et al., Nano Lett., 2006, 6, 875; Wu, Y. et al., Nature, 2004, 430, 61; Lu, Y. et al., J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2003, 125, 12724; Huang, M. H. et al., Science, 2001, 292, 1897; Lassiter, J. B. et al., Nano Lett., 2008, 8, 1212), most reported methods for synthesizing heterometallic hybrid nanoparticles involve complicated procedures and harsh reaction conditions, and are unused for synthesizing a simple structure such as dimmers. Furthermore, although highly challenging, asymmetric synthesis of complex nanostructures with specific orientations could provide a new pathway for the formation of nanostructures with unprecedented properties and functions (Caswell, K. K. et al., J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2003, 125, 13914; Salem, A. K. et al., Nano Lett., 2004, 4, 1163; Gole, A. et al., Langmuir, 2005, 21, 10756; Chen, M. et al., J. Phys. Chem. B, 2006, 110, 211; Salant, A. et al., J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2006, 128, 10006; Chen, C.-L. et al., J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2010, 132, 6902).
Based on this background, the present inventors prepared nanoparticles that are composed of a gold or silver nanoparticle head part and a gold or silver nanoparticle body part, in which a plurality of oligonucleotides are bound to the surface of the head part, and a lower portion of the head part is located on a concave region in the upper portion of the body part. They found that these nanoparticles can offer platforms for DNA-based assembly of various aligned and unconventional nanostructures, and are highly applicable to the detection of DNA and an analyte associated with the onset and progression of a particular disease, thereby completing the present invention.